


Can't Sleep.

by cancerthecrabbo



Series: The Hero... [1]
Category: The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
Genre: Angst, Beginnings of healing, Champions Live AU, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/F, Family of Choice, Friendship, Gen, Getting Worse before Getting Better, Hurt/Comfort, Link is angry, Link is sad, Platonic Relationships, Post-Game, Sadness, Still Angst tho, This game has engulfed me, Trauma, Zelda is sad, description of injury, everyone is sad, mentions of serious injury, not too graphic, spoilers for the game
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-20
Updated: 2017-04-20
Packaged: 2018-10-21 05:29:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,715
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10678659
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cancerthecrabbo/pseuds/cancerthecrabbo
Summary: !!Spoilers for Game!!Link can see them die, he can picture it. Over and over, he sees his failure.





	Can't Sleep.

**Author's Note:**

> Hey y'all I need to stop beginning new stories haha anyway enjoy pain

The sun was setting, but Link could not sleep.  He was bone tired after another day of clearing out the left over monsters hiding after Ganon was killed.  He had a few new superficial scratches because – to everyone’s dismay – he wanted some alone time to think and obviously slicing apart moblins was the best situation.  As an added bonus, he thought that the fighting would leave him tired enough to finally fall asleep before the sun started to peak over the mountain again.  It didn’t work, unfortunately, and now he was left feeling heavy in more than one sense. 

 

No matter what, every time he lay down on a bed the thought of falling asleep and waking up to a ravaged kingdom where his victory over Ganon was nothing but a dream petrified him.  Link couldn’t close his eyes without fearing that a blood moon would rise and Zelda, Urbosa, Mipha, Daruk, and Revali would slip away from him like he let them 100 years ago.  It was silly, he knew, for those five were sleeping soundly and safely in the rooms next to him.  They were seconds away from his protection, and incredibly capable of taking them of themselves.  However, fear for their lives gripped him and shook his mind until he didn’t know whether he was in the past and the ‘future’ had never happened. 

 

His hands shook, filling him with anger at his own weakness.  He clenched them hard enough to draw a bit of blood from the flesh of his palm.  Gritting his teeth, he flung himself out of bed and padded out of the room with nothing but his night clothes.  His bare feet didn’t appreciate the cold of the castle floor nor the even colder ground that led him to the training grounds nestled behind the walls.  Link stumbled and sucked in a breath when the world blurred and he could have sworn he saw the same bricks he leaned on turn blighted, and heard Calamity Ganon screech its loathing at him.  He blinked and saw that the cool, soft light of the moon shined down on the castle grounds.  Everything was as it should be.  And yet…

 

The targets and dummies awaited his fury, sitting innocently in the dim light of the night.  Link was far enough from the bedrooms – at least, he thought so – that no one would hear him when he began to tear apart the straw and burlap.  He slowed his steps, stopping in the middle of the ring of dummies and swiped a sword off the ground, gripping the handle so hard his knuckles turned white.  After a moment of flurried, jumbled thoughts he knew it would be best to take off his shirt before he sweat through yet another one.  Stabbing the sword into the ground, he practically ripped his shirt off and flung it into some corner.

 

He pulled the blade back out of the soft dirt and breathed heavily, shutting his eyes against the invading visions of blood and death.  Specifically, the death of the people he holds dearest to his heart.  Breath hitching, he held back tears of grief and frustration.

 

Goddess Hylia, why couldn’t Ganon just _let him **go**?_

Link was leaping forward before he knew it.  With a strangled cry he cut the dummy closest to him into literal ribbons, moving on to the next.  And the next.  There were enough of them in the training grounds to keep a batch of soldiers busy for a day, but Link tore through them quicker than any troop could.  The sword in his hands moved without the grace of the Master Sword but still skillfully enough that he decimated the training dummies in minutes. 

 

His sore muscles protested with each swing and he let out a barely contained grunt – _not a sob_ , he told himself, lying even to his own mind – that became less and less controlled as the night turned to dawn.  Link whirled around to look for his next victim and found that nothing was left in the training grounds.  Nothing but a broken excuse for a hero.  Blood dripped from his abused palms and tears squeezed past his blond lashes, a quiet curse tumbling from his snarled lips.

 

The sword slipped out of his raw hands and clattered to the ground as the sun began to peek out behind him and flooded the area with soft, golden light.

 

“Link,” a familiar voice called out to him from behind.  A hand landed on his shoulder and he coughed out a sob.  His entire body sagged as Zelda spun him around gently, bringing his shaking body closer to hers and hugging him tighter until he felt like _maybe_ he wouldn’t fall apart that very moment.  “Tell me what’s wrong, please.  I want to help, Link, I cannot bear to see you like this anymore.”

 

Through gritted teeth he breathed, letting her presence wash over him.  His knees buckled, pulling them both down onto the stone littered with straw and pieces of burlap.  She held him at arm’s length now, looking at him with age-old patience.  Link’s hands move shakily, confessing, “ _I couldn’t sleep_.”  He could barely face her in this state, when he knew he should be strong and unmoving in the face of any adversary.  Even one that he couldn’t defeat with a blade.  The truth of his struggles forced its way out.  “ _I can’t help but think…something will go wrong.  I will wake up to see that you and the others are gone again.”_

Zelda’s eyebrows drew together immediately and she pulled him closer again.  Her thin fingers wove their way through his unbound hair in loving, sisterly motion that soothed him.  “My brave Link.  You saved us, and Hyrule.  We are okay, and you are okay.  You are _safe_.”  She whispered him, grounding him with her reassurances.

 

Goddess, he wished he could forget.  Forget the moment he fell in the mud, with his arm mangled and pulsing.  The way his vision became nothing but darkness, blacker than the corruption Ganon had sent at the Divine Beasts.  How much his burned flesh stung in the rain, and the way Zelda called his name so desperately.  An ache in his chest billowed out from where he knew one of the guardians had nicked him – which was a huge understatement, the bones beneath that line of skin had been singed – and he choked on another hitching sob.

 

* * *

 

The two of them stayed like that until Link, in his exhaustion, fell asleep against the princess.  She was overjoyed that he allowed himself to fall asleep in the open because he had a tendency to sleep with his back against a wall – or not at all.  Zelda knew that it was in part because of the energy he lost letting his emotions run rampant but appreciated the moment of peace anyway.  It would be ideal if they were inside, which was why she hoped that Urbosa would get impatient or her (over)protectiveness could kick in.

 

Zelda understood how Link felt.  She knew what it was like to wake up in a dark room and think, _I am still alone_.  Whenever the darkness was too much her first instinct was to find one of her Champions.  They knew her better than her father knew her – and she loved her father dearly, but those five…they’re everything to her.  She would give anything to keep them safe and they would do the same for her 

 

They have.  And Goddess she wishes they didn’t.

 

And their sacrifices were exactly what had Link where he was right now.  Zelda looked down at the knight in her arms and took the rare opportunity to coddle him.  She couldn’t really comfort him to the fullest extent since he was unconscious, but at least she could try.

 

Link’s hair wasn’t even up.  That was the first thing he did every morning to get it out of his face -  whether it was a braid or a half ponytail.  The locks were spread out on her lap and brushed the cold ground.  Zelda reached down and gently gathered it all onto his shoulder.  Sweat beaded down from his forehead and the tear tracks stood out in the low light of dawn.  The stress lines weren’t visible as he slept. He looked so much younger when he was asleep, as if the burden of saving all of Hyrule hadn’t been squarely on his shoulders for months.  Zelda was glad for the low light because otherwise, she’d be able to see the grey lock of hair mingling with the bangs she was carding her fingers through.

 

The sheer amount of stress was enough to give Link grey hairs – and yes, she was all too aware of the 100 years he spent asleep – despite his young age.  And Zelda knew that she used to have a matching lock in her own blonde hair.  She remembers looking in a mirror for the first time in a century and seeing it there, a reminder of all that time spent with an abomination.  She had taken the closest blade and sawed the grey out of the sea of gold, and promptly washing her hands raw. 

 

No one had been left untouched, obviously, something so horrendous was bound to leave scars.  Zelda just wished they would be easier to deal with.  The realist in her mind calmly and destructively said that none of her dearest friends would be left the same, unwaveringly reminding her that the five of them had actually died 100 years ago.  She could see the haunted look in their eyes, no matter how snarky Revali was and no matter how jovially Daruk laughed. 

 

Link was still deep asleep when Urbosa came to find the two Hylians with a large scimitar hanging easily from her fingertips.  The sun was almost completely over the walls of the training grounds when Zelda was walking hand in hand with Urbosa.  The Gerudo was so large compared to the two of them that she could easily carry Link with one arm.  She had offered to carry Zelda as well, but the princess said she preferred to hold Urbosa’s hand.  The warrior had smiled at that and readjusted Link before they set off to the castle again.

**Author's Note:**

> I had fun coming up with a Champions Live AU and guess what - it opens up even more possibilities for pain and sadness for Link and all his buddies. Seriously man. He's such a sad boi.


End file.
